HPE pours block storage and new hardware into Greenlake

Adds a load of distributors to as-a-service charge in hope of getting thouands more resellers on board

HPE has added a dozen new services to its subscription-based GreenLake platform, including self-provisioned block storage, high performance computing (HPC), and entirely moving the Aruba networking portfolio to it.

The company's latest CTO Fidelma Russo gave an upbeat introduction to HPE's new services, claiming it now has more than $6.5bn in total contract value booked on the GreenLake portfolio, and over 900 partners invested in it. However, that is a fraction of HPE's 80,000-strong channel network worldwide, or just 1.125 per cent, as The Register reported last year.

For this reason, HPE has now made GreenLake directly available in the cloud marketplaces and ecommerce platforms of distributors including Arrow Electronics, Ingram Micro, ALSO Group and TD Synnex. HPE claims this opens up GreenLake to over 100,000 partners who are now able to deliver it to their clients.

On the additions to its portfolio, HPE has extended its existing GreenLake storage offer with HPE GreenLake for Block Storage, built to help businesses transition faster to a cloud-like operational experience on-premises, according to HPE's veep for GreenLake Cloud Services, Flynn Maloy.

Maloy claimed this is the industry's first storage-as-a-service that provides self-service provisioning and a 100 percent availability guarantee. The last bit may be true, but Pure Storage already offers on-premises storage-as-a-service with self-service provisioning, as does IBM and Zadara. That 100 percent uptime guarantee is for mission-critical applications, with HPE also offering a business critical tier with six nines availability.

"Even the line of business and the database admins can self-provision storage instantly, without the need for domain expertise," said Maloy, "And we believe this is going to be game changing for what's available in the market today."

Customers – HPE said – get instant quoting and ordering, working with either HPE directly or with their preferred channel partner, and choose from four key attributes for their desired SLA, with no need to worry about the underlying capabilities or anything else, Maloy claimed.

HPE GreenLake for Block Storage is available in select countries from May, as a subscription with monthly payments.

One service that is not new but definitely enhanced is HPE GreenLake for High Performance Computing.

This is now based on Apollo 6500 Gen10 server nodes with optional Nvidia A100, A40 or A30 GPUs for AI and HPC acceleration, and the high-speed Slingshot interconnect developed by HPE's subsidiary Cray. The storage layer is HPE's Parallel File System Storage, which is based on IBM's Spectrum Scale/GPFS.

With this, customers can order a pre-configured HPC solution, starting at 10 nodes, to operate from their own data center or in a colocation center. It is delivered as a fully managed service, with customers billed on core per hour of consumption for the compute nodes. This update will be available worldwide from June.

Also expanded is HPE GreenLake for Aruba Networking, which adds eight new services, comprising Indoor and Outdoor Wireless, Remote Wireless, Wired Access, Wired Aggregation, Wired Core, SD-Branch, and User Experience Insight (UXI) monitoring. According to Maloy, HPE expects this level of modularity to interest many more customers.

"This allows our bigger GreenLake customers to plug and play different modules into their broader environment. So they might be a GreenLake for Storage or GreenLake for SAP customer, but they also have some specific network needs, and this is going to allow a level of modular plug and play that we're very excited about," he said.

HPE Green Lake for Compute Ops Management is the firm's cloud-based management tool for its ProLiant server systems, which is now open for a 90-day free trial and will be available for purchase in June. It automates the compute lifecycle management process across a customer's entire compute environment, according to HPE.

"Compute Ops Management customers can update hundreds of servers at a time with just a few clicks, and do bulk actions across their entire fleet. It can automate those tedious activities, specifically firmware updating and software updates," said Maloy.

Also enhanced is the HPE Backup and Recovery Service, which is described as backup-as-a service designed for hybrid cloud, allowing customers to start protecting their virtual machines with three clicks or less in five minutes, according to Maloy. "Without the need to manage backup infrastructure or media servers, customers get the benefit of rapid recovery on premises, along with cost effective long term retention in the cloud, if desired," he explained.

On the support for distributor marketplaces mentioned above, Maloy said that HPE had put a lot of work into delivering an API-driven catalogue of pre-defined services for the online marketplaces of outfits such as Arrow Electronics and Ingram Micro, with automated billing and ordering.

In response to a question, Maloy said that HPE's end goal is to have the same percentage of GreenLake direct and indirect business as it does for the company overall.

"It started out more of a direct business and we've been working hard over the last three years at building out a channel program. Two years ago, we announced our Channel Program 3.0, which really landed in the right spot, and it has been accelerating faster than our direct business over the last two years," he claimed.

That must be why so many channel partners have raced to sign up. ®